The world was harly a kind place for gay men in 1940, but societal pressure certainly wasn’t enough to suppress love — and not every affair ended in a sea of despair, condemnation, and suicide.

Case in point: While embroiled in military training for World War Two, a soldier named Gilbert Bradley fell madly for another man, exchanging hundreds of letters with a mysterious suitor who signed with simply the letter “G”.

Those letters were recently discovered after Bradley’s death in 2008, and now they’ve been donated to the Oswestry Town Museum.

Not only was homosexuality was still illegal in those days, but men in the armed forces could be shot for having sex with one of their peers.

The letters shed an unusual amount of light on what gay relationships were like at the time.

“My darling boy,” begins one such letter.

For years I had it drummed into me that no love could last for life…

I want you darling seriously to delve into your own mind, and to look for once in to the future.

Imagine the time when the war is over and we are living together… would it not be better to live on from now on the memory of our life together when it was at its most golden pitch.

Your own G.

Here’s another letter in its entirety:

February 12 1940, Park Grange

My own darling boy,

There is nothing more than I desire in life but to have you with me constantly…

…I can see or I imagine I can see, what your mother and father’s reaction would be… the rest of the world have no conception of what our love is – they do not know that it is love…

In one piece of correspondence, Bowsher tells his lover to

“do one thing for me in deadly seriousness. I want all my letters destroyed. Please darling do this for me. Til then and forever I worship you.”

Portentously, another letter concludes:

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all our letters could be published in the future in a more enlightened time. Then all the world could see how in love we are.”

What is the source for the statement that American troops could be shot for homosexuality in the Second World War? I’ve never heard of that happening. As far as I know, military executions were carried out in WWII for only three crimes: murder, rape, and (once) desertion.

A fair number of military personnel were discharged for homosexuality from 1941 to 1945 (Randy Shilts speculated that one reason San Francisco became a gay homeland was that a lot men discharged for homosexuality in WWII were processed out in San Francisco, and they feared they wouldn’t be welcome back in their home towns, so San Francisco is where they stayed.)

But shot? No. I never heard of gay troops being shot. Or hanged (the American military’s preferred method of execution during the period in question).

Actually, Heywood, the Queerty article doesn’t say they were British, and the soldier in the lead photo appears to be an American. As Gay Scottish Guy points out, you have to discern Bradley’s and G’s nationalities from place names and the postage stamps in the photos. And, to confuse matters further, British postage stamps don’t say “Great Britain” on them. So don’t judge me like you’re Michelle Visage and I’m a female impersonator who doesn’t know how to sew, ok? Because you’re not, and I do.

As in most of these articles, the photo is obviously a stock image, not the actual soldier involved. And it is quite clear from the article that it is not about Americans, especially given the towns mentioned and the letter shown.

The first specifically gay movement (though not called gay, per se) was in the late 1800’s. I know you’d like to think a gay identity did not exist until the 1960’s and is a liberal conspiracy, or some such drivel, but that is incorrect. Your imagination does not create the past, just as it does not create the future.

Gay was used to denote things homosexual before the start of the 20th century. And drag shows, bars for homosexuals, spots for cruising, and long term romances have existed for centuries. And even if there was no word for the subculture, the subculture…the identity…was there.
It is sad your world is so colored by your distaste for yourself, but that projection is yours and is not real for anyone but those who share your emotional issues.

@kurt_t:
First of all I’d like to note that these soldiers were not American however from the UK. This can be deduced from the letters which have Royal Mail stamps and are addressed to a location in Scotland.

Secondly, I myself can’t find a primary source stating that it was an offence punishable by death in HM’s Armed Forces however I have found second hand evidence which can be seen in a BBC News article released this February.

Oh, they were British. My mistake. The American helmet in the first picture threw me off, I guess. Also, the U.S. has a tradition of borrowing (and mispronouncing) Scottish place names, so that’s not always a real obvious clue.

Well, if the BBC says that gay sex was a capital offense in the British military in those days that must be true, but I’ve never heard of an execution on such grounds ever taking place.

What a fascinating glimpse into a time before even I was born. People like these soldiers, with their love that dare not speak its name, made possible my generation’s gains by simply giving voice to their love for each other.

Again, you need a little help understanding that your imagination does not change the real world. The gay identity was taken on by gay men a long long time ago (possibly even before the 6000 year your kind ascribes to the universe).

Just kidding with that one, but your regressive ignorance of reality is not that different from the evangelicals.
While it is true that heterosexuals in the US were more physically demonstrative of friendship prior to world war one, and that such public displays largely disappeared by the end of world war two, the knowledge of homosexuality as different from heterosexuality, and the recognition of same sex couples goes back centuries. Gay is simply a 19th and 20th century tag for something much older.
In short, you are totally incorrect in your fanciful analysis based on nothing at all.

How do you explain the gay men in the nazi camps? Some of which were reimprisoned based on nazi evidence after the war was over? I’m sure society was like: oh yeah it’s just love, how beautiful. War hero Alan Turing got chemically castrated and that probably contributed to his likely suicide despite the number of lives of he saved.

For a while, gay identity politics was necessary – indeed, it helped us destroy the anti-homosexual laws that existed for about a hundred years. Today, however, it has become an enemy of male liberation, a divisive tool designed to dilute and weaken the male sex.

So-called gay liberation has become all about making rules. When a belief system turns from breaking rules to making rules, it’s time to say “stop this train, I want to get off”.

Frankly, all politics is identity politics. You may scoff at the alphabet soup of Democratic politics, but really Republican politics are no different. Real Americans, Christians Americans, Rich Americans and Law and Order Americans are identities; and they are mostly white and male.

Seek. Professional. Help.
Your imagination is becoming harder for you to separate from reality. It seems to completely color your present, and re-make the past in your mind.

There are certainly aspects of our culture that can be seen as inappropriate by heterosexuals. But your notions about “male liberation” and “weakening the male sex” are delusion at best. And nobody is more about making rules, especially ones that constrain others, than regressives such as yourself.

So sad, this was the year before I was born, and after I was born in 1941 I felt a connection to the sailor who stopped by to see me in a crib, in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho at the hospital. As I grew up, I was always attracted to the same gender, and when I was in the Navy, a Navy musician, a gay guy introduced me to gay life in Washington, D.C. I met my lifetime partner of 55 years, married 13 years, and we are both retired and living the American dream. We have come a long way baby!